Remember Groom Lake
by Dr. Dredd
Summary: An experiment in artificial wormhole generation goes horribly wrong. Crossover with Eureka.
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

"Henry, remember Groom Lake?"

"Yeah, but this time we're sober."

- _Eureka, Pilot episode_

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1978, Groom Lake, Nevada

The two men sat on the hill in the darkness, looking down at the infamous Area 51. A six-pack of beer sat between them, and the remnants of another were strewn across the nearby landscape. One of the two, a young black man, yawned, belched, and let out a contented sigh.

"Shut up, Henry!" hissed his companion. "If they find us here..."

Henry laughed, a warm, rich baritone. "Relax, Warren. No one knows where we are."

Warren wasn't convinced. "How do you know? I bet they have all sorts of sensing equipment, some of which you probably developed!"

"Exactly!" Henry grinned. He held up a small, black box. "And what I developed, I can outsmart."

"Oh."

"Uh-huh." Henry finished his beer and reached for another. "So, you feeling any better?"

Warren stared morosely at his own beer. "Not really," he muttered.

Henry reached over and shook his friend playfully. "Why the hell not? We just snuck into Area 51. Do you know how long people have tried to do this? Maybe we'll even see a UFO tonight."

"I guess..."

Henry's smile disappeared. "Warren, man, you've got to let go of this. It's eating you up inside."

"I have wanted to study physics at MIT ever since I knew what physics was! And I have a 4.0 GPA at Harvard. It isn't fair; they should have accepted me." To Warren's disgust, he could feel tears welling up. He slammed back the remnants of his drink and grabbed another can of beer.

"No, it isn't fair," Henry agreed. "But that won't change anything. If you don't get over it, you're never going to get anywhere." Static electricity suddenly crackled over a nearby cactus. What the hell?

Warren didn't notice it. "What am I supposed to do now?" he whined.

Henry looked sharply at the cactus, but the display wasn't repeated. He shrugged. "You could come to Cal Tech with me. It's not exactly a second rate school."

Before Warren could reply, a bolt of electricity rippled out of nowhere and split a nearby bolder. "Holy shit!" both men yelped in unison. As they watched, additional energy flares appeared in the night and coalesced into something that looked liked a giant pool of water. Weird noises emanated from it, some almost sounding like wordless screams. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the apparition vanished again and the night was once again quiet.

"My God," Warren breathed.

"What the hell?"

"Looked almost like a wormhole," Warren said, his melancholy forgotten.

"There aren't any stable wormholes!"

"That we know of. Yet."

"True." Henry looked thoughtful. "Transtemporal?"

"Maybe. But..."

"FREEZE!" Henry Deacon and Warren King turned to face a two-man Special Forces patrol.

"Oh, boy," Warren whispered as one pointed a gun at them.

Henry tried to put on a confident smile, but it came out looking a little sickly. "I know this looks bad, but we..."

"Shut up!" snapped one of the SFs. He sighed and turned to his partner. "Captain Hammond will need to be notified about this."

"Yeah. In the meantime, what do we do with these guys?"

"Nothing. We just wait here; that's the protocol." The soldier gestured with his weapon. "You two sit on the ground and don't move."

Warren and Henry obeyed. As they waited, Henry went over the events in his mind. One thing in particular intrigued him. Just before whatever-it-was had disappeared, he could have sworn he heard a voice that said, "McKay, what the hell did you do?!"

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**Chapter One**

2005, Eureka, Location classified

Jack Carter was bored. His desk was literally groaning under the weight of his paperwork (at least, he hoped the noise was the paperwork and not some weird new project of Fargo's), and he would rather shoot himself in the foot than fill out any of it. He looked hopefully at the phone on his desk, silently begging it to ring, then glanced out the window to watch a couple of kids assembling... something. With his luck, it would turn out to be something that exploded or tried to shoot people, and he'd wind up with a few dozen more forms to complete. In triplicate.

He heard a muffled snicker coming from across the room, and turned to see Jo trying to hide a smirk. "Problems, Carter?" she asked innocently.

Jack made a face at her. "You're so funny... oh wait, you're not."

She grinned. "I won, fair and square. You have to do everything I say for 24 hours."

"Doing all of your paperwork on top of my own wasn't what I had in mind!" Jack whined.

Jo shrugged. "You're the sheriff. You should know better than to bet on what might happen during a full moon." He gave an inarticulate growl, but her grin just grew wider.

A single, sharp bark suddenly echoed from the entryway, followed by the sound of padding paws. "Uh-oh," said Jo.

"Hide the food," Jack agreed. He swept a wrapped-up sandwich off the top of his desk and into a drawer. As he watched, a shaggy head stuck itself through the doorway and whined at him.

"LoJack," Jo sighed. He walked over to her and nudged her hand with his nose, then walked back to the door and barked again.

"Hey, pup," Jack said amiably. LoJack was a large, furry dog of indeterminate origins who had been the town's spirit animal and unofficial guardian for as long as anyone could remember. He was usually very easygoing but was fiercely protective of the townspeople, particularly the children. He was also very loyal to Jack, who had helped save his life after he was hit by a car.

In answer to the former marshal's greeting, LoJack padded over and licked his hand. "Sorry, buddy, you're not getting my lunch today." LoJack snorted and shook himself. He stared at the door again with what Jack could swear was a look of impatience. "Well!" Jack said, standing up with unseemly haste. "I'd better go investigate!"

Jo cleared her throat. "Carter! Aren't you forgetting something?" She picked up a pencil and shook it at him.

"Sorry," Jack said, giving her that little-boy grin she hated so much. "Duty calls. Like you said, I am the sheriff."

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2005, Atlantis, Pegasus galaxy

John had to hold back a smile as Rodney bounded into the conference room in his usual energetic fashion. Some things were constant. Teyla was always going to kick his ass during their training sessions. Kavanaugh was always going to find something to bitch about. And Rodney was always going to arrive at the daily staff meeting looking like a cross between Einstein and the Energizer bunny on crack. "How many cups today?" John drawled.

The physicist scowled. "Don't you have anything better to do than to nag me about how much coffee I drink?"

John pretended to think it over. "Nope!" he said cheerfully.

Rodney sniffed. "If you must know, I just finished my ninth cup."

"Not bad! Yesterday you had twelve. Congratulations on cutting back."

"Maybe now the rest of us will have a fighting chance," Peter Grodin mumbled from his seat next to John.

Before Rodney could figure out a snappy comeback, the door slid open to admit Carson and Teyla. She was grinning broadly, obviously responding to something the doctor had said outside. She whispered something back to him as they sat down, and he playfully cuffed her on the shoulder. John raised an eyebrow. Were Carson and Teyla an item now? None of his business, he supposed, but he was curious.

Elizabeth was the last to enter the conference room. "I apologize for being late," she said. "I had to mediate a dispute between anthropology and botany."

"Get rid of them both," Rodney muttered under his breath. Everyone else chuckled; they all knew the physicist's opinion of the "soft" sciences.

Elizabeth opened the meeting. The first item on the agenda was power generation. They now had two fewer naquadah generators than they'd arrived with. Rodney had thrown one through the gate, and John had just blown up the second one high above the planet. "Will the remaining generators be sufficient to power the city?" Elizabeth asked. Rodney sighed.

"It depends on what you mean by 'sufficient.' If you mean 'capable of repelling a full-on Wraith invasion,' then no. If you mean 'enough to run day to day operations and keep us from dying horrible deaths before the Wraith attack,' then yes. We'll have to ration usage a bit, but it shouldn't pose too much of a hardship."

She nodded. "Please work with Peter to come up with a schedule for rotating power limitations. We don't want to have any more departments at each others' throats."

John spoke next. He didn't have much to say. Some of his men, including Ford, were still a little spooked from the nanovirus incident, but he didn't think it was going to be a long term problem. From across the conference room table, concerned blue eyes locked on his. John sighed. "I'm fine, Carson. No symptoms of radiation poisoning. I'm not throwing up, my hair hasn't started falling out..."

"God forbid," Rodney snickered.

John successfully resisted the urge to smack him. "... and no symptoms of a nature unsuitable for public discussion."

The blue eyes turned reproachful. "And I'm sure you would be entirely forthcoming with me if you were having problems."

"Gimme a break, will you?" John wasn't quite sure how he'd acquired the reputation of being closemouthed about his health. A few concealed broken ribs and you were branded for life!

Carson looked at him for another minute and then nodded, dropping the subject for now. The physician gave a brief report on their medical supply inventory – holding up for now, but they were starting to run low on some of the synthetic antibiotics and painkillers. "If I could go back to Earth for even one day, I could restock for several years," he said wistfully.

Rodney looked smug. "Funny you should say that."

"What?!" Everyone was pretty much in unison.

"I have two words for you," the physicist said. "Artificial wormhole generation."

John couldn't resist this time. "That's three words, McKay."

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Eureka

When they got to the parking lot, the dog ran to the driver's side of Carter's cruiser and whined. Jack shook his head. "I don't care if you have a higher IQ than I do. You're not driving!" LoJack just panted, but Jack could swear he was laughing at him.

Jack opened the door on the driver's side and gestured with a flourish. The dog jumped in and moved across to the passenger's side. He sat there, tail wagging, as Jack followed a little more slowly.

Jack started the car and began to back out of his parking spot. He stopped when LoJack barked at him, though, and sheepishly put on his seatbelt. "If you're so smart, why don't you put on yours, too?" he muttered under his breath. LoJack barked again.

"Wiseass."

Jack drove down the main street of Eureka, waving to Vincent as he passed Café Diem. "I'm going to assumed that whatever you want me to see is at Global Dynamics, since that's where most of the weird shit happens. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though." The dog didn't respond, so Jack continued on his way.

He stopped the car as they approached the main gate of Global Dynamics. "I'm going to need a reason to take you in with me." Jack tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. "I guess I can always say that Taggart wants to make sure all those nano-thingies are deactivated."

LoJack growled, and Jack held up his hands. "Easy, buddy! I won't let him keep you there! I'll make him promise to let you go again, 'Scout's honor'. Aw, come on, don't give me those puppy-dog eyes!" LoJack whimpered pitifully and put his head down on his paws. "Besides," Jack said conspiratorially, "Deep down, I don't think he really wants to catch you. It would be like... oh, I don't know... the Coyote catching the Road Runner! What could he possibly have to look forward to after that?"

The dog twisted so that his back was to the sheriff. Jack sighed. "Would you feel better if I told you there was a sandwich in the glove compartment?"

LoJack perked up and hit the glove compartment release with a paw. As he happily munched on his treat, Jack muttered, "I can't believe I just spent the last five minutes arguing with a dog."

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Atlantis

Radek threw a pencil across the room at Rodney and screamed something at him in Czech. Watching the scene from the doorway of the lab, John winced. Dr. Z. was usually much more even-tempered. Rodney must really be pushing his buttons today.

"It was only a suggestion," Rodney said stiffly.

"I have suggestion for you, too! I suggest you go take a flying f..."

John knew he had to intervene before blood was shed. Carson wouldn't be happy if his well-earned day off was interrupted. Clearing his throat, the colonel took a step into the room. "Playing nicely, kids?"

Rodney huffed. "I was merely saying that Radek might want another set of eyes to check over his calculations."

Zelenka turned red. "No. What you actually said was, 'Give me that so non-moron can take a look.'"

John acted quickly to forestall the next round of geek smackdown. "What are you working on, anyway?"

Rodney folded his arms across his chest. "We're working on that artificial wormhole generator I discussed in the meeting yesterday."

"About that," said John. "I'm sure it's fascinating, but why bother? Isn't the gate itself a method of artificially creating wormholes?"

"Yes, but in case you hadn't noticed, it requires an awful lot of power!"

Radek pointed at a small device that looked uncannily like a hair dryer. "Rodney seems to think there is a ZPM-like power source in there which will generate large amounts of energy when recharged, thus allowing for wormhole formation without the use of a stargate."

"All that power in that little thing?" John was skeptical.

"Look, the Ancients had to start somewhere when they were developing ZPM's," Rodney argued. "It makes sense that they'd have also created something smaller." He looked wistful for a minute. "If what I found in the database is true, they were also developing ZPM-like technology on a much larger scale, too. Project Taris or Turus, or something like that. Think of what we could use that for..."

"You're drooling, McKay," John smirked.

"Am not!" Rodney surreptitiously wiped at the corners of his mouth. "Anyway, if we can make this work, there's a chance we can use it to open a wormhole to Earth."

John turned to Radek. "I take it you don't agree."

The Czech shrugged. "It's not that I don't agree. We just have no way of testing Rodney's theory. According to the database, it takes a certain piece of equipment to recharge that thing. But the Ancients did not see fit to mention what that piece of equipment was."

Rodney gave a long-suffering sigh. "I told you, already. We can hook up one of the naquadah generators and give it a minimal charge. Jump-start it, so to speak. It will at least allow us to take some preliminary readings."

"Whoa-whoa-whoa!" John held up his hands. "Didn't we say in the same meeting that we're running short on generators?"

"Exactly!" Radek agreed. "It is not worth taking the chance of destroying another generator... and possibly us with it!"

"And that's why I think someone should look over your calculations. You've obviously made a mistake if you think that..."

John interrupted again. "I think this is where I came in. It's not me that you're going to have to convince, though. It's Elizabeth."

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Eureka, Global Dynamics facility

The Global Dynamics complex was starting to freak Jack out. He was still having nightmares about long, dark, creepy tunnels, and exploding Nathan Starks. LoJack seemed equally unhappy; he pressed his furry body against Jack as the two of them got out of the car.

The guard in the security booth nodded to Jack politely as he and the dog approached the entrance. "Can I help you, sir?"

"Nah. I'm just here to make sure things are back to normal after our little invasion of the Pod-Starks last month."

The guard tried not to snicker. "Normal, sir? Around here?"

"Good point," Jack admitted. "Say, would you happen to know if there are any new tests planned for today?"

"Excuse me?"

Jack tried to figure out some way of asking his question without revealing that he had blindly followed a dog without a hint as to what was going on. "Is anyone testing anything that has the potential to destroy all life on Earth or permanently scramble everyone's television?" Two weeks ago Jack had been forced to put Fargo under protective custody when an unfortunate lab accident had taken out everyone's TV at the precise moment when the _Battlestar Galactica_ season finale faded to black on a pivotal cliffhanger.

At the other man's puzzled glance, Jack just looked down at LoJack and shrugged. "Never mind. I'm sure any trouble will find me soon enough. Let's go, pooch."

o-o-o

Nathan Stark sat back in his desk chair and gave the woman standing in front of him his most innocent-looking smile. "I don't know what you're talking about, Allie."

Allison Blake wasn't buying it. "Sure you don't. You're the director of Global Dynamics, but you don't know anything about what's going on down in Section Five."

"I didn't say I don't know what's going on. I just said that there's nothing sinister or even very exciting happening."

Allison put her hands on her hips. "Sorry, but that isn't going to cut it. First there's the chip that Walter Perkins appropriated. I did a little digging, and it's light-years ahead of everything else we've got. I had to call in a lot of favors to get access to the really classified files." She frowned. "Then there's Carl Carlson. Something emanating from Section Five mutated him, for God's sake! And now the latest rumors..."

Nathan leaned forward and stared at her intently. "Rumors of what?"

"Holes opening up in thin air, people vanishing and reappearing miles away, things like that."

He gave an internal sigh of relief. For a minute, it sounded like she had found out about the Artifact. Nathan smiled. "Is that all? That's not Section Five. It's actually something that Henry and Warren King have been working on."

Allison looked incredulous. "Warren? He's still around after the Perkins fiasco?"

"Sure." Nathan shrugged. "He may have been demoted from GD director, but he's still a damn good scientist. And between you and me, I think he's actually happier now. But don't just take my word for it. We'll go talk to him and Henry and they can put your mind at ease about the project."

Footsteps approached them as they walked down the hall, and Nathan groaned when he saw who it was. The damnable Sheriff Carter and... "What the hell is that mutt doing here? If it hadn't been for him..."

Carter smirked. "Hello to you, too, Nathan." LoJack looked at him reproachfully, and even Allison glared at him. Jeez! What was it with women and dogs, anyway?

Nathan cleared his throat. "My apologies. Perhaps what I should have said was, 'Why have you brought that poor animal back to GD?'" The second phrasing wasn't much better, to judge from the eyerolls and low growl that were directed at him. Tough crowd.

Allison interrupted impatiently before the sheriff could reply. "Can we get back to the business on hand, please?"

Carter looked at them expectantly and raised an eyebrow. Nathan sighed. "Allie and I were on our way to talk to Henry. You're welcome to join us, if you like.

"Thought you'd never ask."

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Atlantis

Rodney checked the monitor leads one final time and then nodded to Radek. Together the two scientists joined a group of observers at the other end of the self-contained lab. John and Elizabeth, who Rodney had finally persuaded to allow the use of a naquadah generator, were standing next to the main control console. Ford and Teyla were also there, and Carson was standing in the back, looking nervously at the tangle of wires that connected the Ancient device to its new power source. (The physician had insisted on being present, commenting sarcastically about how Rodney's experiments tended to drum up business for him, but he still didn't look happy about being around unknown technology.)

"We're ready," Rodney told the group.

Elizabeth still looked dubious. "Are you absolutely sure about this? Even if today's test is successful, it's still a long way from having any practical applications."

Rodney almost snapped back that of course he was sure and could they just get on with this before they all died of boredom or old age, whichever came first? Something in Elizabeth's voice stopped him, though. There was skepticism, yes, but also a tinge of desperation. He knew that she sometimes prowled the halls late at night, worrying about the inevitable Wraith attack on the city, and she obviously didn't want to let herself hope that his project could be an escape hatch.

The old Rodney would never had noticed this, but things had changed since he'd almost died from the nanovirus. (Okay, he'd never been in any real danger of dying, but he hadn't known that at the time.) That experience had driven home the point that these people were his family. Sure, Carson was like a bossy older brother and John and Aiden acted like annoying little brats sometimes, but they were family nonetheless. He'd never admit it to anyone, of course, but he just might have become a little more sensitive. Just a little.

So instead of letting loose with the snark, Rodney simply nodded and said, "Yes, I'm absolutely sure." He reached down and flipped a switch on the console. The generator began to hum and new data appeared on the screen of his laptop.

"Power level at five percent and holding," said Radek.

"Good, good," Rodney said absently. His eyes were intent on the computer screen. "Interesting. It's emitting an E-M field, but the detectors are picking up some odd fluctuations. Raise the power to ten percent."

"Done."

Rodney looked up at the device for a second, then returned his gaze to the computer screen. "Hmm. Now there's a second field, perpendicular to the first one. They're interacting, but..."

There was a sudden flash of light that made everyone in the room duck instinctively. When no explosion followed, Rodney popped up again. "What the hell was that?"

"Both fields have doubled in strength!" Radek's voice was disbelieving.

"Did you turn up the generator?"

"I didn't do anything!" Radek paused as he looked at his own computer screen. "Rodney..."

"I see it." He typed furiously. "Exotic particles. Where are they coming from?"

John cleared his throat. "Um. Do we need to worry about being in the same room as the strange radiation-spewing machine?"

Rodney shook his head absently. "Probably not. Anyway, this lab can be sealed off just in case we need to contain something."

John snorted. "Somehow, that doesn't make me feel better."

"Shut it down," said Elizabeth.

"But..."

"Now, Rodney!"

"Shutting it down." He hit a few keys, and the generator turned off. Elizabeth gave a small sigh of relief.

Radek, though, was looking at the Ancient device with growing horror. "It's still on."

"What?!" Rodney yelped. "What's powering it?"

Radek muttered under his breath in Czech. "I don't know! It's drawing energy from... somewhere."

The device itself was glowing now. Everyone in the room except Rodney and Radek started edging towards the door. Another flash of light stopped them in their tracks, though. When the light faded, standing next to the naquadah generator was a large, shaggy dog.

"What the hell?" said John. The dog and the humans in the room gaped at each other for a minute, then the dog threw back its head and howled.

"You got that right, buddy," said John.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

1978, Groom Lake, Nevada

The guards shoved Warren and Henry through a doorway and slammed the door behind them. The two men found themselves in a small room with a wooden table and three chairs, a one-way mirror, and little else. Henry tried the door, even though he knew he was going to find it locked.

Warren rubbed his wrists. Both men had been handcuffed for several hours before being brought to the interrogation room. "Nice going, Henry," Warren said disgustedly. "Whatever I created, I can outsmart," he mocked.

Henry looked sheepish. "Yeah, they must have upgraded my stuff. I wish I could find out how they did it," he said wistfully.

"As if anyone would tell you," Warren scoffed. "We'll be lucky if they don't lock us away for life, or worse!"

"I think you're being a little melodramatic, Mr. King," said a new voice. It came from a speaker mounted above the one-way mirror. Its owner, a tall, slightly pudgy man wearing fatigues, entered the room a moment later. He sat in one of the wooden chairs and motioned Warren and Henry to the other two. "I'm Captain George Hammond," he said with a faint Southern drawl. Then he sat back and just looked at them silently for several minutes.

Warren fidgeted under Hammond's stern gaze, but Henry folded his arms and glared back. The captain sighed. "Mr. Deacon, your progress has been monitored for the last several years, and I'm sure you know why."

Henry looked indignant. "What the hell? It's not like I tried to build a nuclear bomb, or anything like that!"

"No, that was that crazy Canadian kid," Hammond muttered. In a louder voice, he continued, "Anyway, we've been keeping an eye on you, and we figured it was only a matter of time before you tried a stunt like this." A faint smile crossed his face. "We had a bet on what stupid thing you'd try. I lost."

Henry wasn't amused. "I'm glad that someone finds my life so fascinating," he said coldly.

Hammond leaned forward and fixed Henry with a steely-eyed glare. "You single-handedly took down the Department of Defense's computer network. Did you think you wouldn't be kept under surveillance?"

Warren stared at his friend. "You did that? Cool."

"Shut up, Warren!" Henry hissed. "You are so not helping here."

"I think we're getting off track," said Hammond calmly. "Actually, I really don't give a rat's ass as to why you're here or how you managed to circumvent security. Mr. King's fears in that regard are groundless."

Warren colored slightly.

"So what do you want with us?" Henry asked bluntly.

"We got some very strange readings from that spatial anomaly. You two are the only ones who actually witnessed it, so we want to know exactly what you saw."

Henry shrugged. "There's not much to tell, but suit yourself."

Hammond stood up. "I'll be back later with some of our physicists. Then we can start the full debriefing." He smiled, a touch maliciously. "I believe you've experienced one before."

Henry groaned after Hammond had gone. "What an asshole," he said.

"Debriefing?" Warren asked. "That sounds...ominous."

Henry snorted. "Don't worry. There will be no thumbscrews, and the most lethal thing they've got is their coffee. After all, why bother with pain when you can bore someone to death instead? This could take days."

Warren looked down at his feet for a minute, then raised his head again. "Henry?" he asked hesitantly. "What exactly did you do?"

The other man sighed. "That, my friend, is a long story."

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2005, Eureka, Global Dynamics facility

As they walked, Allison filled Jack in on what was happening. "We've been getting calls from Mrs. Oppenheimer. Seems as if little Jake's been seeing monsters in his closet."

"And the DoD is getting involved?" Jack scoffed. "What's next – Operation Easter Bunny?"

Allison gave him The Look. Jack was used to getting something similar from Zoe. It was her "Oh-my-God-I-can't-believe-we-share-the-same-genes" look. He grinned to see it on Allison's face now.

"Cute," she said. "Mrs. Oppenheimer didn't believe Jake at first, either. But then she saw it, too, and the "monster" looked remarkably like Spencer Martin."

"Oh, come on. Really? Spencer's kinda geeky-looking, but a monster?" Jack knew he was going to have to give Zoe shit about this when he got home tonight. He'd long suspected that his daughter had a crush on Henry's young assistant. "Anyway, what the hell was he doing under Jake Oppenheimer's bed?"

They stopped at the door to Henry's lab. "Hopefully we're about to find out," replied Allison.

Nathan poked his head through the doorway. "Hellooo? Anybody home? No? Okay, we'll come back later." He quickly turned to leave, but was stopped by Allison's hand on his shoulder.

"Nice try," she said dryly, "but he's standing right behind you." She pointed.

"Oh! Um... right." Nathan had the grace to look a little sheepish.

Henry looked from Allison to Nathan to Jack. "What's going on, guys?"

"Allie was curious about your latest brainstorm. I think the sheriff was just being nosy, though." Jack glared at Nathan, who just smirked back in response.

"You mean the matter transmission project?" Henry shrugged. "It's in the very early stages."

"Not so early that it didn't scare the Oppenheimers into needing therapy," Jack offered. Then a thought occurred to him. "Hey, you and Beverly aren't running a scam, are you?"

Henry winced. "That wasn't supposed to happen," he admitted.

Jack rolled his eyes. "No, really?"

The engineer sighed. "Warren and I have been trying to come up with a way to transport small objects instantaneously from one place to another."

"You mean like, 'Beam me up, Scotty?'" Jack asked. Allison tried without success to hide a snicker.

"Not exactly," Henry replied. "We're trying to use a wormhole to transfer objects intact, in discrete units. Star Trek's transporter supposedly dematerialized and later rematerialized things or people." He shook his head bemusedly and muttered, "Man, I am such a geek."

"How did you go from small objects to Spencer?" Allison asked.

"That's the thing," said Henry. "It shouldn't have been possible. The power requirements would have blacked out all of Global Dynamics."

"Hmm..." said Nathan. Jack didn't trust the sudden speculative look he saw on the other man's face.

Neither did Allison, apparently. "Nathan, what do you know about this?" she asked suspiciously.

Stark didn't answer the question. Instead, he turned to Henry and asked, "Can I see what you were using to create the wormholes?"

Henry shrugged in response. "Sure." He looked at Jack. "Just... try not to touch anything."

"Hey!" Jack said, affronted. "That accidental satellite launch? So not my fault."

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Atlantis

"McKay?" John asked with a false smile pasted on his face. "How did that dog get here?"

"I have no idea," replied the physicist absently, concentrating on the readouts in front of him. Hearing the major's skeptical snort, he let out an exasperated sigh. "Despite what I tell you, I don't always have the answers."

"Somebody record that for posterity," Radek muttered under his breath, fingers typing nonstop on his computer keyboard.

The device was still drawing power from its unknown source, and the glow around it was growing steadily brighter. "Rodney, I think we need to get out of here," John said.

"Just a minute." Rodney turned to Radek. "What are those E-M fields doing?"

"They are getting exponentially stronger! And I am beginning to detect a buildup of the exotic particles around the naquadah generator."

Without taking his eyes off the sensors in front of him, Rodney snapped his fingers at John. "Major Sheppard, you should probably get everyone out of here."

"I just said that," John muttered under his breath. Turning to look over his shoulder, he called, "Carson, Elizabeth, get back to the control room!"

"Same with you, Radek," Rodney added. "See if you can establish a containment field around this lab."

"You're coming, too," John said at the same time that Radek protested, "What about you, Rodney?"

"I'll be right behind you!" the physicist snapped.

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Eureka

Nathan looked at the equipment cobbled together on Henry's lab bench, his thoughts racing. Henry was right; there was no way that this... whatever it was... should have been able to teleport something the size of a human. Frankly, he didn't think it should work at all.

And that meant only one thing.

Carl Carlson's experiments on cellular regeneration shouldn't have worked, either. Exotic particles emitted by the Artifact had endowed first the experiment, then the man himself, with properties unexplainable by current science. Nathan knew that if he were to bring a scanner down here now, he would find the same particles.

"What the hell is it?" Nathan wondered, not for the first time. There was no question in his mind that the Artifact was extraterrestrial, but beyond that, he didn't have a clue.

Henry was obviously waiting for him to say something about his matter-transporter. "Um, well, it's certainly unique-looking."

Henry laughed. "Yeah, it looks like a piece of junk. But let me show it to you in action."

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Atlantis

John was about to bodily haul Rodney out of the lab. Radek had signaled that he was ready to establish a containment field around the entire area, and although John didn't want to wager on its chances of holding back a catastrophic explosion, it would hopefully work on anything short of that. The lab obviously needed to be empty first, so...

"Don't even say it!" Rodney snapped before John could do more than open his mouth.

John glared back. "We don't have time for you to screw around any more! We've got to get clear." He took one step towards his friend, then froze as a bolt of electricity arced out of the device. As the colonel watched in horror, it struck Rodney on his left arm and the physicist dropped like a stone.

"Rodney!" John moved to catch McKay, but Ford and Teyla were closer. Together they caught the physicist and eased him gently to the ground.

"Oh, man," Ford whispered as he got a good look at the burn on Rodney's arm. Even from where John was standing, it looked bad. From wrist to elbow, the flesh was blackened, and blood was starting to ooze from half a dozen places in the skin. Mercifully, Rodney appeared to be in shock; the pain hadn't seemed to have hit him yet.

John frantically stabbed at his earpiece. "Carson, get back here! Rodney's been hurt."

A heavy sigh came over the radio, followed by the physician's usual steady tones. "On my way. Can you tell me what I should be ready for?"

As John relayed details about Rodney's injury, the hairs on the back of his neck began to stand on end. Looking over, he saw that Teyla's hair was similarly affected. Something was building up in the machine, and he really didn't want to be around to see what happened.

Next to him, from where he was crouched under a lab bench, the dog whined in agreement.

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Eureka

For a minute, nobody in the room moved. Everyone was staring at the place where, up until a moment ago, LoJack had been standing. A sudden power surge had led to a blinding flash of light, and when it subsided, LoJack was gone.

Jack found his voice first. "Oh my God," he yelped. "You disintegrated the dog!"

"Good riddance," Nathan muttered, and Allison promptly smacked him. "Ow!" He gave her a wounded look.

"What the hell?" Henry was staring at his lab bench in horror. Like most of the people in town, he liked the furry mutt. "It's never done anything like that before!"

"Not even with Spencer?" Jack asked.

"Especially not with Spencer. We never would have continued the project."

"First things first," Allison said. "Can we at least make sure it's turned off now?"

Henry nodded and pointed to one of the dials on the machine. "There's no power flowing through the control circuit now. But just to be on the safe side, I'll disconnect the..."

Without warning, the device powered up for the final time. Jack instinctively moved to knock Allison out of the way as an energy bolt shot across the room, but he was too slow. The beam hit both of them, then deflected off at an angle to strike Nathan, too.

Henry was temporarily blinded by the flash. When his vision cleared, he was relieved for a moment to see three people still standing in front of him. But his relief was short-lived as he realized that the woman and two men were complete strangers. To make matters worse, one of the men had an horrific-looking burn on his left arm.

And finally, to put the icing on the cake, the matter transmission device exploded in a shower of sparks.

TBC


End file.
